


No Place for Lovers

by grumpygemini



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Coming Out, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-10-01 22:04:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20419796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumpygemini/pseuds/grumpygemini
Summary: Ethan and Brandt seemed to silently argue who of the two should explain the technician-turned-field-agent what their plan was. Luther rolled his eyes at their hesitation and decided to beat them to the punch.“We need someone to go undercover,” Benji’s face lit up momentarily. He knew he was a capable field agent: he had mastered multiple languages in a record time, proven his loyalty to the IMF (and in particular Ethan Hunt) and gotten them out of complicated situations. Heck, he had even been behind the wheel in a car chase and survive a fucking bomb strapped to him. Maybe he’d even get to wear a mas- “in a gay club,” Luther finished his sentence.Benji’s face fell.





	No Place for Lovers

**Author's Note:**

> For more information on the non-con section of the fic, please scroll to the notes at the end. This way I can avoid people glancing at accidental spoilers and give you the best information on what is happening precisely so you can choose to avoid it. 
> 
> This is also the second fic I ever uploaded and the first in this fandom. I'm doing my best!

“I think Benji should do it,” Brandt stated.

Benji looked up from his tinkering, puzzled. His current project, an improved design of a non-erasable microchip - nothing special, laid abandoned. “Do what?”

Brandt’s eyes flicked over to the corner where Benji had sat, silently watching the younger man near the group of agents. Luther watched the pair as if gearing up to watch the Wimbledon’s men’s final. Ethan’s gaze was locked firmly on Brandt, silently weighing his options. Usually speaking the furrow in Ethan’s brow meant that exciting plans were being created, but in this particular moment it unsettled Benji.

“I’m about to experience some real FOMO here, guys.”, he tried to joke.

Luther shot his eyebrows up, questioningly.

“Fear of missing out,” explained Brandt in a monotone voice, not to dissimilar from if you’d asked the male siri for a definition. Luther looked briefly disappointed in the both of them, but shrugged as he leaned back in his chair again.

“I think Benji could do it,” echoed Ethan, voice sounding less certain than Brandt’s earlier statement.

Benji shifted his weight in unease. “Am I allowed to know what I could do?”

Ethan and Brandt seemed to silently argue who of the two should explain the technician-turned-field-agent what their plan was. Luther rolled his eyes at their hesitation and decided to beat them to the punch.

“We need someone to go undercover,” Benji’s face lit up momentarily. He knew he was a capable field agent: he had mastered multiple languages in a record time, proven his loyalty to the IMF (and in particular Ethan Hunt) and gotten them out of complicated situations. Heck, he had even been behind the wheel in a car chase and survive a fucking bomb strapped to him. Maybe he’d even get to wear a mas- “in a gay club,” Luther finished his sentence.

Benji’s face fell.

“No,” he said, eyes widening a little as his arms made dismissive gestures in world’s most awkward way. Nobody in the IMF, or anywhere really, knew about his sexual orientation. He knew that even in these more progressive times gay men weren’t exactly seen as field agent material, nor as particularly strong in any other way. He had put too much work in – getting a bloody green card was a pain in the arse, to let his sexuality ruin everything he built up.

Ethan glanced at him briefly, clear concern ghosting over his features. Benji’s heart was ready to give out on him. He knew how his whole journey of hero worship turned work partners looked when it came to the great Ethan Hunt. He didn’t need the very capable agent to think that he was, what- in love?

“I- I’m not--,” Benji stammered, feeling like his whole training had been thrown out of the window.

“We’re not saying you are gay,” Ethan said as Brandt snorted quietly, “just that you’d be the most convincing.”

Benji thawed a little at Ethan’s warm vowels, but couldn’t stop himself from babbling some vaguely coherent protests. He paused as he felt a warm hand on his shoulder, just enough to ground him and get him back to his senses. The warmth lingered as he realized that the touch belonged to Ethan himself, the subject of his moment of slight gay panic.

He swallowed, standing up straight with his chin tilted up slightly.

“Tell me more about this mission,” he said. If his voice sounded a bit too much like an action hero in a B-movie, then well, so be it. He needed to put his defences back up.

Relief flashed on Ethan’s face briefly before he left Benji’s side. The big screens in the room lit up and, just for a moment, Benji felt the pang of excitement at how awfully cheesy it felt to do a briefing in such a James Bond-esque way. Sometimes he still couldn’t believe that this was his life. Not doing IT at some remote hospital with the same returning questions, which he had done for a couple months as he studied in Oxford. Gosh, those poor servers would probably be in horrible state now.

“Lars Sommer,” Ethan started, “he’s an arms dealer who is trying to get his hands on a trading deal from the US government. It’s not a life or death situation yet,” Brandt mumbled ‘for a change’, but seemed to be largely ignored, “so we can’t go in shooting half of the place.”

The image behind him changed. Pictured was a tall, brown haired man in a navy dress shirt. His top buttons were undone and a skinny blonde straddled his lap. Benji looked away for a moment as a blush crept up this face. If Ethan noticed, he decided not to comment on it.

“Our target seems most… approachable in this state,” Ethan uncharacteristically stumbled over the sentence, which Brandt noticed.

“We need someone to go into the bar and flirt with him, once we get him alone we can extract him without too much hassle,” Brandt interjected, moving to the front of the room. “This bar is a serious opportunity for us to get a hold of Sommer, given that his security is – understandably, less tight.”

Benji’s mouth was dry as he caught on to the plan.

“You… want me to flirt with our target?”

Benji looked at Brandt (who nodded), then stared straight at Ethan.

“Why do you let me be the flirt when there’s Ethan bloody Hunt on our team?” he half-shouted, gesturing to the man next to the big screens. “He’s so ridiculously attractive that anyone with even the slightest interest in men would want to fuck him.”

Luther and Brandt shared a look, then both stared at Ethan. Benji knew he had made a mistake.

“I mean-,” he stammered, giving up. “Do I need a disguise?”

This time, Brandt hardly could restrain a full on wheeze.

\- - -

Turned out Lars Sommer’s type was, according to research Benji didn’t want to know about, not to dissimilar from the IMF’s own scrawny technician.

He had nearly forgotten about the whole ordeal (or really, wanted to forget, it had only been two days since they had mentioned the plan) when he found a package in his flat. Since his pay check had increased somewhat since his promotion, he did find himself shopping online quite a bit more. He didn’t remember this particular purchase, though.

Benji had just started prodding the package carefully when his phone rang. He backed away slowly as he picked up.

“Hello?” he said, having been drilled not to give away any information over the phone to unknown numbers.

“Benji!”

The tension in Benji’s body seemed to flow away as he heard the familiar voice. He leaned against his kitchen counter, smiling to himself.

“Yeah, Benji here,” he said lamely, his laugh turning a bit dorky.

“Have you received the clothes?” Benji eyed the package and nodded.

Ethan, not hearing any answer, continued speaking: “There should be a package with some clothes for the mission and some instructions.”

Benji still seemed doubtful, but at least attempted to open up the unfamiliar delivery. It went a bit slow with one hand, so he mumbled an apology to Ethan as he put the phone down to quickly open it. His eyes scanned over the items: a wine-red dress shirt, anthracite slacks and a pair of neat shoes. Next to it were a pair of sunglasses – Benji checked briefly for any technology, but noticed they were plain (who the fuck wears sunglasses to a gay club?) and a small ear piece.

He attempted to pick up the phone, but his hand slipped and the pile of stuff shifted. Benji audibly gasped as he saw the Prada tag.

“Ethan,” he hissed, “these clothes are worth more than my paycheck!”

Ethan made a dismissive sound, but Benji was freaking out in a way not to dissimilar from the time Ethan paid 50 million dollars for his release.

“We- I’m sure there’s wine red dress shirts in any menswear store in the whole of DC for less than what this cost.”

“Sommer would notice,” Ethan said. Just as quick as that, Benji’s attempt at protesting disappeared.

“Okay.”

“You have an appointment at the barber’s shop round the corner from the Thai takeout Luther likes. Be there at 10 am tomorrow.” Benji groaned softly, but decided not to whine too much. He had already reached his daily quota.

Ethan seemed ready to hang up now that he had said what needed to be done. For some reason, Benji didn’t want him to hang up yet. He released a pathetic “wait”, which resulted in Ethan making an inquiring noise.

“Will you be there for the mission?” he asked weakly.

Benji closed his eyes as he waited for the response.

“Of course, Benji. I promised I’ll keep you safe.”

He released a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

\- - -

Moments after he left the barber shop the following morning, he got the missing information for his mission. At the bottom of the receipt stood a code in a slightly different font, which he typed in slowly into his burner phone.

The mission wasn’t quite complicated: be there Friday at 8, wait for Sommer to arrive at 8:30 and then approach him. He was supposed to wear his outfit, including (as specifically mentioned) the earpiece. It had said nothing about having to wear the sunglasses, so he decided to ditch the undoubtedly overpriced frames. He wasn’t Bono, for fuck’s sake.

\- - -

That Friday he stood anxiously in his hotel room’s bathroom, staring the unfamiliar yet familiar face down. He didn’t look too different from before, really. The grooves from experiencing more than a life time’s worth of mixed emotions were still defining his face and he still had more-or-less the same haircut and a beard.

He didn’t know what the IMF’s idea of being stereotypically gay was, but he started to think that ‘Benji Dunn’ was somewhere in the definition.

The barber had cleaned up the fade in his hair and thinned out his beard a bit. He had expected bleached hair or for at least the grey hairs to be dyed, but the kind gentleman had informed him that it said nothing about that in his instructions.

Maybe being IMF’s idea of a homosexual male wasn’t that bad.

The clothes were the main thing that made him feel uneasy, more so because they made him look the closest thing to attractive that he’d ever considered. The wine red fabric clung to his muscled stomach and, if he were able to see it, undeniable made his back display the working out he had been doing since he started training. The trousers made his legs look nice for a change, rather than the equivalent of being a children’s drawing with sticky legs.

He found himself looking incredibly handsome, which made it even more frustrating that he still saw his tired eyes, receding hairline and skinny frame. Even thousands of dollars’ worth of clothing and a barber shop appointment couldn’t turn Benji into half the man Ethan Hunt was.

The man in the mirror gave him one final worn look, before he disappeared and shut the door to the bathroom. He had somewhere to be at 8.

\- - -

“We don’t have visual on you tonight, Benji,” sounded Ethan’s familiar voice in his ear. He would’ve been excited about this role reversal in any other situation, but sat at the bar in a gay club it didn’t do much to ease his nerves.

He understood what Ethan reminded him off: wearing a contact would be too dangerous given the close proximity he had to be in. Benji shivered briefly at that thought. He had suggested the glasses as an alternative, but Luther had dismissed the idea. “The glasses are buggy at best, Benji,” he had said in this I-know-that-you-know-this-as-well way. Benji had nodded weakly.

Instead they had agreed that Benji would try to quietly give them updates whenever he could through the small microphone in one of his dress shirt’s buttons.

And so, when Benji ordered a pint of Heineken at the bar, he heard in his ear a mixture of responses.

“You can’t drink, you’re on a mission,” interjected Ethan, at the same time as Brandt said: “Beer? While you’re dressed in expensive clothes in a gay club?”

Benji felt a pang of guilt, and defensively uttered a “I need some liquid courage, thankyouverymuch” before ignoring their responses. Maybe he should’ve ordered something fancier, just for the higher alcohol percentage.

He took a sip as he turned his back to the bar, eyeing the men in the booths and on the dancefloor. The bar was always a good place to start missions, he thought to himself, because any place that wanted to earn from selling beverages would make the bar highly accessible and visible. He ignored that it gave him an excuse to avoid the variety of men who were there.

Half of his pint was gone in record time, which he only noticed when he checked his watch. He decided to nurse his pint a bit more, walk around a bit and then get back to the bar for clearer visual around half past eight. It wasn’t the best plan, but with Ethan not giving out instructions apart from a ‘flirt with this target, Benji’ he didn’t have anything better.

As he walked by the edge of the dancefloor he decided the music was loud enough to give some updates. He looked casual, hiding his mouth behind his pint as he mumbled: “Nothing yet.”

Just as he said that, a man stumbled into him from the dancefloor and made him nearly drop his beer. He looked up, slightly offended in behalf of the beverage, before his breath caught in his throat.

The man who stood before him was roughly his age (maybe a bit younger), wore a black shirt that stretched around his muscled torso and looked way too familiar for Benji in this current setting. He softly uttered an excuse, ready to dart back to the bar and abandon his stroll around the area. A strong arm on his biceps stopped him and Benji swore softly.

He heard static in his ear from where the other agents were listening, but they didn’t say anything.

The man pulled him against his strong torso and held him there, swaying without a rhythm to the pumping 80s sounding remix of a modern day song.

“Don’t go, beautiful.” He slurred, tilting up Benji’s head with one of his hands. Benji struggled in his grip. The man seemed to notice his lack of willingness, releasing him with a half-arsed excuse.

“Don’t. Fucking. Touch. Me.” Benji growled, poking his index finger in the larger man’s chest. His breathing came out more laboured than he wanted, but he told himself it was more so for his lack of physical contact in the past months than for the man looking way too much like Ethan Hunt.

He ignored the couple of curious looks he got and headed back to the bar. The line in his ear was still nothing more than static.

“Another beer please,” he told the man behind the bar. The bartender shot him a concerned glance, but went to get him one anyway.

“Benji,” said Ethan in his ear, “I told you—” Benji balled his fists, feeling his professionalism slide away every second. He leaned over to the button where the microphone was.

“Ethan Matthew Hunt,” he whispered as sternly as he could, “I have been to a gay bar before, I can bloody well handle myself.”

This was one of those times he wish they were still in the smartphone era. He really wanted to be able to hang up on Ethan and pretend that this was an ordinary evening. With his microphone embedded in his shirt, he could hardly hang up on Ethan.

He was so frustrated that he barely caught Ethan’s quiet “I didn’t know you were-“. When it registered, he removed the earpiece and tossed it aside.

He didn’t need to hear.  
\- - -  
Admittedly, Benji was disappointed in himself. He was usually sticking to protocol and guidelines, enjoying the safety of rules to fall back to. Of course, by now he had broken them enough times, following the example of the IMF.

He had never expected to go against their orders though, and it didn’t feel nearly as good as he had hoped it would be. He wasn’t just Benji Dunn, he was part of a team now.

The weight of the earpiece felt heavy in his pocket, but he refused to give in quite yet. If he needed to succeed, Ethan Hunt couldn’t be in his ears being a distraction. He sighed, rubbing his temples with both of his hands as he leaned his elbows on the bar. The bartender from before hovered around him, but didn’t say anything. His half full second pint of Heineken was standing before him, looking simultaneously more tempting and less tempting at the same time.

He was so lost in thought be barely registered the subtle vibrating from his watch to indicate it was 8:30. If it wasn’t for someone moving in his personal space, he probably wouldn’t have even noticed.

“You don’t look like you belong here,” said a slightly accented voice.

Benji looked up from the bar, ready to dismiss the man with a simple ‘I’m not interested’ or any other half-truth. He opened his mouth already before looking at the man’s face, shutting it again and opening it to say something else like a fish on dry land. The stranger next to him was tall, wore clothes probably as expensive as Benji’s mission clothes were and owned a, much to his surprise, kind face.

“Good evening, mister Sommer,” said the bartender from the place he had been hovering before.

Benji’s stomach dropped. This was the man that was his target?

“Lars Sommer,” he whispered surprised. The owner of that name looked taken aback, leaning on the bar as he squinted his blue eyes in Benji’s direction.

“How do you know my name?” he asked, threatening tone slipping through the European vowels.

Benji sputtered, looking uneasy. “I eh…. Your reputation precedes you.” It was a cliché, but it softened the man’s features a considerable amount. He’d settle for lines borrowed from shitty movies if it meant he’d be able to last a bit longer.

“In what way?” Sommer asked with a nip of curiosity.

“Well,” Benji started, shifting his posture to look a bit less on edge of falling into a depressive episode, “I’m here on a business trip, and one of my business partners happens to be queer too.”

Sommer watched him, silently urging him to say more.

Benji leaned a bit closer, taking his beer now in hand. “Apparently,” he said, taking a bit of a risk by letting his other hand hover near Sommer’s knee, “there’s rumours that you are into men like…. Me”

His target tilted his head curiously. Benji tensed up, half expecting a small red dot to appear on his chest under the man’s studying look, but all he got instead was a genuine hint of a smile. His nerves responded directly by smiling back at the man, relief flooding over his senses.

“People usually aren’t this forward, mister…” – “Taylor,” Benji said hastily, borrowing the last name of arguably the most handsome bass player to ever exist. He quickly browsed through the name of the other band members of Duran Duran for a suitable first name, mentally weighing whether he liked Simon le Bon more or Nick Rhodes. In the end he decided to end up on “Nick Taylor,” smiling to himself for the reference.

He almost could imagine the snicker from Brandt coming from his pocket. It definitely couldn’t be Ethan ‘straight man’ Hunt, who had probably not even paid attention to the British pop group when they were having global success in the 80s.

Sommer put his hand on his shoulder, a casual yet possessive touch. Benji glanced around him for a moment, noticing that the other men were avoiding his eye contact now. Apparently Sommer had laid his claim for the night, and the other men knew.

He shivered when he felt the man lean in close to his ear, for a moment forgetting that he is supposed to be flirting with this man.

“How can I know that I can trust you?” Sommer asked, his breath prickling the nerves near Benji’s ear. He reflexively swallowed, then pulled back enough so he could look Sommer in the eye.

“You don’t,” Benji said, casually, “but you don’t need to trust each other for a quick shag on a trip for work, do you?”

Sommer’s hand tensed for a moment, but then he laughed and guided Benji to stand. He was confused, surely it wasn’t that simple? His question must be noticeable, because Sommer leaned in closer.

“Don’t get too excited yet, boy,” he purred, a hand on the small of his back now pushing him forward. “I have my own private booth.”

Benji definitely didn’t make an embarrassing sound in the back of his throat, nor did his legs feel shaky as he walked in the direction Sommer guided him in. It wasn’t Sommer. Sure, he was attractive, but he was his target. What got to him was the combination of his less than fruitful love life (if Ethan Hunt can’t keep a partner next to his job as an agent, how the fuck would Benji Dunn be able to do such thing?) and the way Sommer’s figure loomed over him as he sounded commanding. His brain surely didn’t want to respond, but his body’s interest was perked.

He hadn’t been called boy in at least a decade.

\- - -

The booth, as it turned out, was not quite as private as the name ‘private booth’ would suggest. Currently seated were a couple men in plain black suits. He noted that these guys actually were wearing sunglasses, which suddenly reminded him of the pair he had ditched back home in DC.

It made him suddenly feel oddly out of place.

“So, Nick,” Sommer said, his tone oddly mocking around the syllable of his pretend-name. He was standing behind him now. Benji half-turned his head to be able to see him from the corner of his eye.

“Let one thing be clear,” the hand in his back pushed him into the booth, “one wrong move and my friends will kill you.”

Benji froze. “Kill me?”

The three men in the booth moved their suit jackets aside, the shiny texture of some undeniably-guns, definitely fucking guns, catching some of the light of the club. He had a bad feeling about this. He just wishes he could bloody tell Ethan that.

“Understood?” purred Sommer, moving to sit into the booth himself. He guided Benji along to sit next to him.

Benji, at lack of anything better, nodded once.

“Search him,” said Sommer with a simple gesture, “and then go.”

The man on his other side sprung into action, holding him by his collar as he patted his front. Benji squirmed a little, but knew that he didn’t have to risk anything. As long as they didn’t have any method of detecting outgoing signals, they wouldn’t be able to tell he was wired up to anything at all.

His breath was knocked out of him when he was suddenly pulled up and pushed with his front into the table. The man forced his head down on the table, searching the rest of his pockets. Sommer hummed approvingly, squeezing his ass once.

“Don’t—” Benji bit out. The edge of the table dug into his thigh.

The guard let him go with one final pat down, pulling him back up and dumping him into the cushion of the booth. Benji groaned, silently cursing everyone who he worked with for putting him in this position.

“Are you alright, mister Taylor?” asked Sommer, seemingly unbothered by neither the display nor Benji’s panting next to him.

“Yes,” Benji nodded frantically, “yes, I just… can we have a drink first next time?”

Sommer seemed to think that remark was a whole lot funnier than Benji had intended it. He laughed along, not really seeing the joke.

It seemed as if Sommer being without his guards was the moment people had waited for. Once Benji had regained his breath and gotten another beer from Sommer (Ethan would be pissed), more people had joined the booth. Benji eyed them as he sat next to Sommer. Most of them were younger than he was, wearing clothes that for certain were more expensive than what you’d find in H&M. None of them looked particularly evil, then again: Benji didn’t really look like a secret agent, so there was that. Don’t judge a book by its cover, or an agent by his scrawniness.

What unnerved him most was the man next to him. Some pleasantries aside, the man seemed to have very little interest in his company. Whenever Benji would watch him from the corner of his eye, Sommer would be flat out staring.

He busied himself with his pint, hoping that some of his English uni days would be present to help him be mostly sober, as Sommer spoke to him.

“Is there anyone back home for you, Nick?” he asked slyly. Benji wanted to shiver at the way his voice sounded.

“No,” Benji said too quick.

He sighed.

“Yes, maybe,” he added more honestly. “There’s someone who I’d say I…. am interested in,” he paused again, looking Sommer in the eye for the first time since people joined him in the booth. The man’s hand reached out to grab a hold of his. Benji reluctantly let him, fingers entwining semi-automatically.

“You think he’s not interested in you?” asked Sommer. It almost sounded like he cared.

It might have been that false security that got him to talk more.

“Well, he’s – he’s incredibly attractive, you know?” Benji paused, the lines in his face probably making him look very old. Sommer raised their entwined hands to his mouth, kissing it tenderly. Benji watched him, but didn’t comment on it. Instead he continued. “Even if he weren’t straight – which idiot would be interested in, well, me.” He gestured with the hand that wasn’t on mouth-level with Sommer.

He didn’t expect Sommer to tug him closer, taking Benji out of balance so that all was left for him was straddling his lap to prevent him from falling into Sommer’s chest.

The man’s blue eyes pierced right through him.

“Are you calling me an idiot,” Sommer asked, tugging on Benji’s collar, “mister Taylor?”

Benji was so close to the other man now that he couldn’t look at his face without looking a bit cross-eyed. He pulled slightly, but before he could escape Sommer pressed his lips to his. It wasn’t very long, more similar to the way a dog would nip another to show it was the boss.

“That-,” Benji opened his mouth, then shook his head before saying anything else.

Sommer looked up at him with a challenging look.

Benji, remembering his mission, leaned in to kiss him this time. He closed his eyes, willing his mouth to act the way he so badly wanted to do to anyone but Sommer. With a small, but insistent swipe, he asked for more from the kiss than a simple press of his lips to Sommer’s. Sommer, being the kind of man to take control, bit back. He took Benji’s bottom lip in his, nipping on it before forcing his tongue in Benji’s mouth. Benji stilled for a second, then decided to put his brain on the backseat and let his bodily reactions take over. The moment he stopped holding back he released a soft, needy sound. He felt Sommer’s predatorily smile answering against his mouth. Things were going well, in one way at least.

The rest of the booth seemed to be used to this kind of display, because as both middle-aged men made out like teenagers nobody seemed to really care.

For the better, because if there was anything Benji hated, it was PDA.

He pulled away for a moment, glancing at Sommer beneath him. If he wanted to be rid of this mission quickly, he needed to amp things up a bit.

He moved his hands to the top button of Sommer’s shirt, popping it loose with not too much difficulty. His mouth latched on to the extra bit of skin he could get to, tongue sticking out to taste the typical salt of men’s sweat. He repeated the process a couple times, each time slower and slower. Once he got to the button that was on the edge of public decency, he stopped. On the way back up to Sommer’s neck he left a wet mark of bites and kisses, making sure to look needy rather than anything else.

For good measure he sucked briefly on Sommer’s pulse point. The final stop before getting back at eye level with the older man.

He didn’t have to fake much to sound husky as he spoke up.

“Can we go somewhere more private?”

Sommer looked at him hungrily, thrusting up once to show that he was more than willing. He didn’t move yet though, nor did he say anything. Benji groaned in frustration, because he sure as heck wanted to finish this now.

“Please,” he knew his puppy eyes were a trait he possessed, though nobody at IMF had ever told him that. Sometimes you had to be resourceful on your own.

Sommer seemed convince, excusing himself from the disinterested company. Benji got off his lap, giving Sommer the room to lead him into the general direction where they needed to go.

Not entirely unpredictable, the direction Sommer lead him in was the gent’s toilet. Part of Benji was disappointed that Sommer’s influence on the club didn’t grant him some sort of top secret backroom, but he was all the more pleased that it was an accessible place for an extraction.

He followed Sommer into an empty cubicle. The man put the toilet lid down, silently forcing Benji to sit. Benji felt his nerves flare up every second, only managing to calm them down as he thought of a strategy.

First: they needed to know where he was.

“I’ve never actually, eh—fucked in a bathroom,” Benji said, subtly hinting the hopefully still listening agents of his position.

Sommer smiled, stroking his cheek briefly. Benji tried his best not to flinch.

“It’s not usually my style,” he agreed, “but you’ve got such a pretty mouth, it couldn’t wait until I got home.” Benji shivered as Sommer’s thumb moved over his mouth.

To his relief, Sommer removed his hand from Benji’s face. It was rather short-lived though, as that same hand moved to his belt to unbuckle it. Benji could only watch. He knew it’d blow his cover if he didn’t move, if he didn’t try to hungrily take over and get into Summer’s pants himself, but he couldn’t get himself to move.

Back in the club he could at least partly pretend he was straddling someone else. The dim lighting and the booze in his brain soothed his nerves.

Here though, in the harsh lighting of the toilet cubicle, he suddenly felt like his limits were being tested in more ways than one.

“It would be a shame,” he mumbled, “if someone were to break through the cubicle’s door right now, don’t you think?” It wasn’t quite subtle, but he hoped that his friends would be on standby.

It stayed eerily silent though, and Benji doubted he could go any further. The bulge in Sommer’s trousers was staring him down.

Sommer seemed to note his hesitation. Out of nowhere, or at least to Benji’s not entirely sharp brain at the moment, he seemed to be in possession of a gun.

“You know the deal,” Sommer said, pointing it straight at Benji’s face.

“I—I can’t,” Benji said, willing himself to breathe slowly. The side of the gun connected with his face, making him hiss more out of surprise than out of pain. He, without doubt, would feel that pain later. He had other priorities now.

“You filthy rat,” Sommer yelled. His hand curled around Benji’s jaw, forcing it open. Benji tried to bite down, but before he could do any damage Sommer replaced his hands with the cocked gun.

“Who are you?” Sommer snarled, digging the gun further down Benji’s throat.

He closed his eyes, trying his best not to choke on the metal. Surely he had trained his gag reflex back in the day, but he didn’t exactly enable it for these kind of situations.

“Most people are scared of guns, but you…” Sommer got on eye level. “Open your fucking eyes.”

Benji opened them, glaring straight at him. He doubt he’d look very threatening in this position, but his anger didn’t necessarily care. ‘Stay calm, you idiot,’ he begged himself. ‘Ethan will be there, he’ll always be there,’ he added to his thoughts. Ethan had promised to keep him safe, dammit.

“There’s no fear in your eyes,” Sommer observed, finger itching on the trigger. “You seem more contempt with death than with my cock in your mouth.”

Benji’s nostrils flared as he tried to control his breath, but he didn’t move an inch.

“Listen boy, I’m going to take you home,” Sommer said, “and I’m going to fuck you so hard you’re going to regr-AH”

Benji’s eyes widened, then closed as he heard gun shots.

He wasn’t entirely sure what feeling would be associated with being shot in the head, but he figured it’d either be an immense burst of pain or an instant lack of any feeling at all.

Which made it even more strange that he felt, given the circumstances, quite normal.

He didn’t open his eyes until the lightning in the cubicle seemed to change. Slowly, as if scared he’d not like the view of Heaven or Hell or god knows where, he opened his eyes one by one.

There was Sommer, slumped to the side of the cubicle with an absurd amount of blood covering his dress shirt. His hand had released its grip on the gun in Benji’s mouth, and with some coughing he removed the, for its mouth foreign, object. He knew it was less than necessary, but for good measure he shot Sommer a final time, right in his crotch. With his own gun.

If that wasn’t some sort of action hero move, he didn’t even know.

He tiredly laughed at himself, slumping back against the toilet wall.  
\----

According to Luther, Benji’s response to seeing Ethan Hunt in a gay bar’s bathroom was one of the funniest things he had ever heard. Benji himself didn’t so much as recall the incident, but Luther had filled him in on what happened after Benji was found.

Apparently the first thing he had said after Ethan called out his name was, “Fuck you, Ethan.”

To be fair, that seemed as something he more than likely did do.

Benji, too tired to protest, was then brought up in a half-embrace and lead out of the small space he shared with a former arms’ dealer. Former, because well, he was fucking dead.

The rest between then and Benji waking up in his apartment wasn’t worthy of telling, or at least it wasn’t in Luther’s universe.

To Benji, what seemed most shocking was that Luther, Ethan and Brandt were all watching him when he woke up on his bed. His very own bed, in his very own not-IMF-proof apartment.

“You still own a Wii?” Brandt had asked, first thing after he woke up.

Benji groaned. Surely not a thing he needed right now.

“There’s a difference between owning something and using something,” he drawled sleepily. “I’d consider it a museum worthy piece, given how absolutely terrible it is.”

Brandt smiled, definitely looking more relieved than Benji wanted him to. He sat up, noticing that he had apparently fallen asleep in the overly expensive Prada dress shirt. “Ooooh, no,” he said in distress, “it’s all wrinkled!”

Luther huffed.

“That is the gayest thing you could have s—” Brandt started, but he stopped when he saw Benji’s features turn cross.

Suddenly he felt really stupid laying there in bed. He pulled the covers off him in one movement, standing up quicker than his blood sugar probably liked.

“About that,” Benji said, tossing a couple of old shirts (that the group obviously had seen laying around already) in the laundry basket. He paused, seeing a shirt he recently had worn. He tossed that one on the bed. Quickly unbuttoning his Prada shirt so he could wear something that would be better suited for how angry he was.

He put on his faded Ride shirt, the shirt hanging loosely around his skinny frame.

“I-,” he held the wrinkled Prada shirt in his hand, contemplating whether to throw it in the bin (bad memories) or in the laundry basket (it was a nice shirt).

“I’m so ridiculously angry at you that I don’t even know what to bloody say,” Benji said. He added force to his words by throwing the shirt on top of his other laundry, deciding that he should keep it after all.

“Benji-,” Ethan tried, but Benji glared at him with such force that even Ethan shut up.

“Do you know how long I’ve been living in relative stealth, Ethan?” Benji said, now forcing all his anger on the one person he wanted to talk to most. “People treat you differently when they figure out you’re gay,” he walked back and forth like a trapped animal, moving anxiously with his hands. “In training there were guys who wouldn’t want to shower at the same time as me because they suspected I was--,” he bit down the rest of the sentence.

“I can’t give blood because of my sexual orientation, people have used it as a synonym for ‘you’re weak, Benji’ since I was in elementary school, heck-“, he stopped pacing, looking warily at the tree of them.

“I’m a nerd, I’ve been chubby, I’ve never been conveniently handsome. I didn’t need to give them any more ammunition against me. I just wanted to do my job and be judged by what I could achieve, you know?” Benji stared at Ethan helplessly.

“And then you come fucking prancing in with this idea to let Benji the queer do an undercover mission, because surely he’d be down for it, huh?” Benji snapped bitterly.

Ethan just watched him silently, which was maybe the worst bit of all. He so badly needed a shouting match, any reason for him to justify the anger he felt towards him.

Benji stepped closer, anger now slowly morphing into an ugly variation of shame.

“I felt like nothing more than a whore.” He added quietly, dropping his hands to rest lifelessly next to his sides.

He felt so weak that he didn’t have it in him to protest when Ethan put his arms around him. Nor did he have energy to move into the hug. The only thing he could manage was tiredly moving his head into the embrace, resting it on top of Ethan’s shoulder.

“I promised I wouldn’t let you suffer,” Ethan murmured next to his ear, “I’m sorry I failed.”

Benji breathed in Ethan’s scent for a moment more, then he tiredly started protesting against the grasp on him.

“We wanted to try to extract Sommer alive,” Brandt softly added. Ethan shot a warning look as he let go off Benji, silently pleading Brandt not to make a wrong move.

“We didn’t know Brandt was going to be suck a dick,” Brandt more casually added, “so Ethan decided it was the best option to kill him before he could do more harm.”

Benji stared at Ethan, eyes more expressive than his useless mouth was right now.

“You- You failed the mission because of me?” he said shakily. Ethan nodded slowly, as if he wasn’t sure whether giving Benji that information right now would be a good idea.

Benji silently stood there in the middle of his overly crowded bedroom, silently contemplating. Ethan reached out for a comforting gesture, but Benji flinched as he saw the hand coming towards him.

“I would like to be alone now, if that’s possible.”

Ethan nodded.

Before he knew it Benji was alone in the silent judgement of his own apartment.

\- - -

The record was in the middle of ‘Mouse Trap’ when Benji noticed he had company.

He had no clue how long the shape had been there, given that he had spent the last couple minutes completely soaked up in his own thought process. Reflexively he inched closer to where he kept his spare gun, but if the intruder wanted to do any harm, it would probably have been done already.

“Did you design this,” the intruder said, pointing at Benji’s improved turntable.

Benji wouldn’t necessarily calm himself a lazy person, but there was a reason why vinyl had gone nearly-instinct. He liked the aesthetic of vinyl, but much more preferred the use of streaming services to get his music running. Once, when he got particularly bored, he had decided to buy an old record player and add a hologram to it. That way it would appear as if the record was spinning, when in reality it was just coming from some database or another.

He nodded at the intruder, who started to have the shape of Ethan Hunt more and more.

“It’s…. an interesting record,” Ethan said, not sure on how to approach a dialogue with him, probably.

Benji scoffed.

“It’s ‘Going Blank Again’ by Ride, they were somewhat local heroes in my youth.”

Ethan nodded.

“Explains the shirt,” he said. Nodding in the direction of Benji’s chest. He looked down at the faded pattern of one of the earlier album covers on his shirt.

Benji sighed. “I miss home sometimes,” he said truthfully, “though, you know, it’s nice not to visit England when I’ve got a bomb strapped to me, or-“ Benji closed his mouth. He felt himself getting close to rambling again. “D’youwantsomethingtodrink?” he blurted out.

Ethan looked confused for a second, then smiled. “Water will be fine, thanks.”

Benji, who didn’t feel much like anything more complicated than running the tap and filling up two glasses, agreed that water would probably be the best bet.

He returned with two glasses, then looked around contemplating what his best bet was. Ethan didn’t simply visit him, and he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to have this conversation on the couch. Somehow, in his brain, the couch was for either friendly banter or drunken truths, not anything in-between that.

In the end he did decide that the couch would probably be a better bet than his dining-table-turned-work-place setting. Water and electronics weren’t the best of friends.

He gestured awkwardly at Ethan to sit, then made sure to keep a safe distance as he sat down.

“I’m still sorry,” Ethan said.

Benji angled himself a bit to stare at him, somehow expecting more words to come from Ethan. He remained silent though, which made Benji feel at unease. He knew that in their friendship he was usually the one to babble, but surely Ethan was capable of carrying a conversation as well. In fact, not babbling usually helped to keep a conversation alive.

“I doubt you’re here just to say that,” Benji mumbled, not quite so certain as the words might have sounded. The relatively quiet intro of ‘Time Machine’ filled his living room as Ethan seemed to plan his next move.

“It was Brandt’s idea, technically,” Ethan said, to which Benji narrowed his eyes just the bit, “Brandt knew that you were gay, and figured having someone with… experience would be useful.”

Benji mumbled: “Experience indeed.”

“Anyway, the choice was between two of us, but Brandt figured you’d be more cut for the job,” Ethan said. Benji nodded as if he understood, then paused as he backtracked that very phrase.

“Two.. Two of us?”

Ethan flinched as if he expected that very comment, but had not yet found a suitable explanation. Benji figured he should give him some space to think, because well, this was quite something. He wasn’t the only person who fancied men in his team? That couldn’t be possibly true: Ethan had this whole thing with Julia and surely Ilsa was on his radar, Brandt wouldn’t know gay even if you fucked him up the arse, and Luther? Well, Luther was, despite his appearance, a white picket fence guy.

“I don’t understand,” Benji said quietly, “I’ve never told Brandt I was--- and who else--?” He shook his head.

“Well, I never knew you were gay until you said you’ve been to gay clubs before,” Benji winced. So Ethan remembered that, too, from the night.

“I’m sorry for that,” he said, averting Ethan’s gaze.

“What I wanted to say, Benji,” Ethan started. Benji didn’t dare look up, but his ears were definitely tuned in.

“I’m bisexual.”

The way Benji’s heart started beating against his chest must surely mean he was on his way to a quick death. Surely he couldn’t have heard that correctly.

“You’re… bisexual,” he said, voice suddenly turning full on English disbelief.

“Well, I’ve only kissed a man once, back in college,” Ethan admitted, “and I’ve only been in love with a man once-“

Benji sat up, doing the math. “You were in love with a man in college?” He started thinking about what kind of guy Ethan would have fancied in college, which inevitably turned into him imagining what Ethan must’ve looked like. Surely he would be into some sort of sports team, the way everyone in an American college seems to be. He felt a bit uneasy as he started thinking about a much younger Ethan in those ridiculous American football outfits, -

“Benji, I said I kissed a man in college, not that I was in love with one in college,” Ethan clarified. Or well, he said words. Benji wasn’t much the wiser.

“So, you’ve fallen in love after college?” Benji said, quickly adding: “with a man. A human shaped man. Man shaped huma- whatever.”

Ethan stared in his eyes and Benji couldn’t help staring back. The couch suddenly felt both too big and too small. He could feel Ethan’s presence burning on his side, but he had strategically placed himself on the other side. He started to regret that now.

Then Ethan cracked a smile, the same one that had Benji first realize he was a goner.

(His mum, who had to endure his Skype calls with work updates, would have argued that Ethan’s ‘godlike ass’ would have caught his attention first.)

“I’m not so sure about the human part,” Ethan said, “I’d prefer the term: nerdshaped man.”

Benji froze on his end of the couch.

Surely he couldn’t mean -

“I love you,” he blurted out before his brain could catch on. He then brought his hand to his mouth and bit on the side, silencing himself from saying anything more.

Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit

“Benji,” Ethan said, suddenly much closer. His hand was slowly detangled from his jaws. Even in the slightest ways, Ethan made sure Benji wouldn’t hurt himself.

Benji stubbornly refused to look him in the eyes now, certain that he would do something outside of the realm of simple ‘stupidity’, nearing the realm of ‘absolute wanker’. A gentle finger under his chin lifted him up, patting the trimmed bear just slightly.

“Have I mentioned how ridiculously handsome you looked in those clothes?” Ethan said, turning Benji’s insides into goo. He was thoroughly fucked.

Fuck it, he thought, and he pressed his lips against Ethan’s. He was ready to pull away and admit it was a mistake, that he had cocked up and that he wouldn’t do it again, when Ethan put his warm hands on the side of his face and kissed him back tenderly.

He, in his well over forty years of existing, had never been kissed with so much care in the world. It was not a kiss to get him in bed. It wasn’t one that said, ‘I tolerate you for the couple months that we will be roommates, but once you move out I’ll forget about you.’ It was one that soothed the hurt of his past kisses and made the good experiences fade to the back of his mind.

\- - -

In the end, despite Benji’s wide variety of naughty thoughts that had piled up over the years, they didn’t actually sleep together that night. Or well, they slept together, alright. Benji was sprawled across Ethan throughout most of the night, until at some point his subconscious decided that the warm furnace next to him was too much.

He woke up a couple inches from Ethan, blinking his eyes in disbelief a couple time before the memories settled back in. Once he knew what happened again, he slowly rolled back into the safety of Ethan’s torso for a couple hours.

Ethan stirred not much later, nearly blinding Benji with his bright smile. Of course Ethan would be the kind of person who wakes up immediately aware of his surroundings, rather than Benji’s caffeine demanding brain. They got up together, silently going through a mostly spotless morning routine as if they had been a couple since the dawn of time. Ethan had picked up breakfast duty, while Benji decided to take an extra long shower now he didn’t have to waste time on such a useless task.

(Don’t tell Ethan, but Benji usually didn’t really take the time to sit down for breakfast.)

Ethan looked up with the same pleasant smile as before when Benji walked in. Freshly showered, a white T-shirt clinging to some spots he forgot to dry properly.

“I liked the Prada shirt you wore,” Ethan mentioned casually. Benji blinked at him in confusion as to why he would bring that even up now. “I actually bought your outfit myself, with the IMF’s budget of course.” Benji stared. “It complimented your eyes,” Ethan added casually.

Benji proper laughed. One that came from someplace yet unnamed, deep in his body. “Thank god,” he said between shaky, smiling breath-intakes. “Finally-- Finally proof that you’re not as straight as an arrow!”

“If it’s any relief: I, too, find John Taylor handsome.”

Benji was stunned, but the bubbly, happy feeling hadn’t left him. He walked over to Ethan, placing a kiss on his mouth as an alternative response.

“You are ridiculous.”

**Author's Note:**

> RE: NON-CON:  
The whole mission is essentially on the edge of Benji's comfort zone, but the bit where it goes too far is a scene where he's forced to perform oral without wanting to do so. He doesn't actually end up giving a blow job because I didn't want to be quite as cruel as that, but it is being discussed in a way that I felt like it needed an archive warning. If you want to avoid the scene, stop reading around "Not entirely unpredictable, the direction Sommer lead him in was the gent’s toilet." and start picking it up roughly around "There was Sommer, slumped to the side of the cubicle with an absurd amount of blood covering his dress shirt."
> 
> RE: Music mentioned in the fic
> 
> Ride are a band from Oxford who were around in the 90s. Canonically Benji would be in his teens, and given that there's the nugget of information /somewhere/ (idk where I picked it up) that he studied in Oxford I figured I should include it. 
> 
> I also /really/ love Ride, so it was my little homage at them. 
> 
> John Taylor is simply the most attractive bass player in the world and I think that man could turn anyone gay. I know Benji missed some of Duran Duran's glory days, but I wanted to add the little nugget in there. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for checking this fic out! I really appreciate it. :D I'll be back with more!


End file.
